


The Final Fall

by featheredpranks



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen, Post-season 7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-30
Updated: 2012-09-30
Packaged: 2017-11-15 08:07:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/525046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/featheredpranks/pseuds/featheredpranks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The wings are always the last to go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Final Fall

Suddenly, there are wings.

Castiel yelps, Dean swerves into opposing traffic and Sam turns around in his seat. He gapes at the black-grey mess on either side of the angel. It’s both terrible and beautiful. Sam knows he shouldn’t be staring; it’s probably impolite. On the other hand, it’s probably not even in the books. Angel wings aren’t for looking at with human eyes and the fact that he can see them and he’s not blind yet? It’s bad news. Dean is yelling at him to say something and he just tells him to drive to the motel  _now._ Gingerly, he touches the angel’s knee, meeting his hazel eyes to the other's ice blue. He can’t do much but bite his cheeks. He can’t say everything will be alright because Cas is Falling again.

Sam takes a sheet out of the Impala’s trunk and drapes it around Cas’ wings. He seems to be doing his best to pull them in nearer. But they’re fighting him, trying to escape the angel who abandoned the orders of the Host. Dean pushes them both inside, glancing behind them and locking the door. Sam guides Cas to the bed while Dean closes the blinds. Like a child with a small animal, Cas stares in wonder that the tattered extension of himself and reaches to touch them. The contact elicits a soft screech from him and he yanks his fingers back. He looks up at the Winchesters and explains that he’s Purgatory had a very adverse effect on him. That the absence of his brethren has allowed this. That he must allow it runs its course. And that, regrettably, he will need his own room. Dean refuses to let Castiel suffer alone, of course. Dean can sleep in the chair. Sam can have one bed and Cas the other. It’s not like Dean will sleep much anyway. Castiel insists that they continue hunting.

For once, Sam doesn’t mind that Dean stays behind while he does all the interviewing and the research. Dean stays with Cas as much as possible just talking to him about the last seven years and before that. Talks about the good memories he has, the stupid things he’s done and Castiel just listens, occasionally apologizing when the pain becomes too much for him. Sam researches the new law firm, presumably Leviathan, in the town and the recent disappearances. But he isn’t nearly as focused on that as he is on the angel lore and Bible. He knows he can’t stop Cas from Falling; he just wants to ease his pain. But so far nothing is helping.

Sam and Dean leave to conclude the hunt. Castiel murmurs a goodbye. In the last two days his feathers and bones, so avian in nature, have fallen off, sublimated, dissolved, ignited and dripped out of existence. Precious few remain. These are more complete, even after the distortion of the ones before them. He gazes at them while his eyes water and he whines softly in wordless agony. Dean calls a few minutes later, just to check in. He checks in over and over while they’re gone. Castiel picks up and says he’s okay. Every time.

“I’m okay.”

Castiel lies on his stomach, whimpering. The Winchesters have not returned yet and it is dark. His vision swims as he pushes up on the bed and into a kneeling position. All but a dozen or so feathers remain on the largest and sturdiest of the flight limbs. The largest primary flight feathers he does not notice. It is the secondary ones he sees, one on each wing. He maneuvers what’s left closer to him, grits his teeth and pulls one off of each side. Another lands on the bed beside him while he is screaming. He doesn’t notice it; he’s too busy grabbing a pillow to muffle his voice as his bones turn to ash and stop just barely at his shoulder blades. Eyes watering, he calls Dean who sounds like he is exhausted but he hears the Impala start. Dean won’t get off the phone so Castiel just murmurs Psalms to him, mostly to soothe himself. Sam gets in the room first where the not-quite-angel stands next to the door. He waits until they get into the room and close the door to hand them a feather each and faint into their arms.

Sam winces at the sight of the throbbing wound on Castiel’s upper back, at how raw and burnt it is. Thankfully it’s not bleeding much. Dean lays him on the bed carefully while he gets the first aid kit. An unconscious Castiel twitches under the sting of peroxide and the soft cloth but Dean holds him still, petting his hair in a type of worry reminiscent of a mother. When Sam is done with the gauze, he does not leave his friend’s side. Neither of them do. Quietly, eventually, they discuss the feathers and the extra that Sam finds on the floor.

When he wakes up, Castiel aches. There is an ache in his heart, a throbbing in his head and soft stinging on his back. Sam blinks at him when he sits up. The sun is shining through the motel room’s window; it’s a different motel. A week is what he’s told. That’s how long he slept. He looks at his hands in wonder. He looks down to see a feather with a leather thong threaded through its shaft around his neck. The iridescent black looks magnificent to him. Sam tells him about the extra. Castiel smiles. Dean sleeps peacefully in the other bed and he gets up to look at him. He touches Dean’s face and presses on his cheek until his brilliant forest green eyes open. Dean smiles too.

His back wounds are still pretty raw and sore but they’re healing normally for a human. Castiel, the angel of the lord that once gripped Dean tight and raised him from perdition, is now completely and irrevocably human. Now he understands how it is to be living and dying at the same time and he can spend every moment of it with his friends. So Castiel ignores the Winchesters for a second, looks up and thanks his Father.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr transfer again.


End file.
